


Syzygy

by Birdbitch



Category: DCU
Genre: Angst, Clones, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Reboot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 03:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5231843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events caused by Superboy-Prime, Clark and Lex have a talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syzygy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss Synph (Synph)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Miss+Synph+%28Synph%29).



> When you haven't dealt with canon in a long time and you honestly don't care enough to go back and look up specifics so you play it fast, here are some things you need to know:
> 
> Kon is dead.  
> Clark found out about who's DNA was used to make Kon from Bruce.  
> Lex and Clark are on some weird terms with each other.  
> Assume that Clark was born in the way he was in the Man of Steel movie. 
> 
> When I initially set out to write this, I kept wanting to do something with Kryptonian mating cycles but then ended up with something completely different.

Clark touches down on the balcony outside of Lex’s penthouse like he hasn’t done it half a million times before, like each time he steps foot on the concrete he expects something to go wrong. It doesn’t though—for all that they’ve fought with each other, this weird, small space has always been their neutral zone. He watches Lex through the window, waiting for him to notice that he’s there. He only looks up when he finishes pouring them both drinks (despite knowing that alcohol has never had much of an effect on any Kryptonian), and it’s Clark who opens the door and makes the first step inside.

Sometimes he forgets that Lex isn’t as tall as he projects himself until they’re standing near each other and Lex’s head is tilted back to look up at him. “Back up a little,” Lex says, as if noticing it himself, and he doesn’t—it’s not that he doesn’t want to listen to Lex, because as if innately there’s a piece of him that always does, but he hesitates because there’s just as much a part of him that wants to move into that gap of air between them and close it. He takes the glass and looks down at the whiskey before back up at Lex’s face, unguarded for a moment because he hasn’t noticed Clark looking at him yet.

It’s moments like this which remind Clark to forget everything else, sometimes.

“I came to talk to you,” he says, taking forever to decide on even those words. An entire conversation might take an eternity.

Lex shrugs his shoulders and takes a quick drink from his own glass before setting it down on a transparent coffee table and tucking his hands against his hips, arms akimbo. “You’re here. Let’s talk.”

He watches Lex move away from him now, picking the glass back up, turning back towards the bar and making his way over to it. It makes his mouth go dry and he clenches and unclenches his hands before making the decision to take off his glasses and the windbreaker he wore to work that day. (He doesn’t always make house calls in uniform, even if it makes it somehow harder to get away without the big red target on his back.) He feels the compulsion again to invade Lex’s enormous bubble of personal space and sits down on the couch instead. When Lex, glass full again, turns to look at him, he raises an eyebrow.

“What kind of conversation are we having, Clark?”

“I thought maybe if I looked shorter, you’d come closer,” he answers, and he tries to make himself comfortable where he is. Maybe if he had gotten the chance to grow up on Krypton, he would have been more accustomed to wealth well into adulthood; there’s no reason to believe that the Kents are even close to the social standing of the House of El, even in just the context of Smallville alone. As it stands, he still ended up growing up on a farm, and he’s still worried about destroying Lex’s furniture not because it’s poorly made, but because he _knows_ his own strength, and he’s seen what he’s done to buildings. Also, he probably wouldn’t be able pay Lex back for any damages.

“Maybe,” Lex concedes, and looks outside onto the balcony before making the decision to close the shades entirely. “Why are you here?”

Clark closes his eyes and tilts his head back, letting it rest right at the top of the couch. “I missed you,” he says, and he knows he’s not supposed to say things like that, knows that he and Lex have a thing where they don’t say these kinds of words to each other at all, but he can’t help it. He’s been in space for over a month, and his arms and legs and back ache, and he just...misses. He hears Lex move closer, and he’s afraid to open his eyes when he feels the other man hovering over him. “I’d say I’m sorry,” he starts, and he can hear Lex’s breath hitch slightly in the back of his throat.

“But you’re not,” he finishes, and Clark does open his eyes and nods his head and lifts one of his enormous hands so that it rests against Lex’s jaw, his cheek, the edge of his mouth. “What did you want to talk about, Clark? I’m sure it wasn’t just about missing me.”

“You’re right,” he admits, but he doesn’t move and he closes his eyes again and tries to breathe slowly. “Why didn’t you tell me about Conner’s DNA donors?” he asks, and he expects whatever magic that’s keeping them together to break apart. Instead, nothing happens, and Lex doesn’t move. The spell holds.

He can feel Lex’s heart rate pick up a little bit, can hear his breathing change. “I didn’t know,” he says, finally, and it seems like he might pull away, but he doesn’t. “They didn’t tell me anything.”

Clark remembers that he’s a reporter, that he’s supposed to weasel the truth out of people, and he thinks about how Lois would react to Lex. She wouldn’t believe him. Clark, on the other hand? “Didn’t you tell them to do it?” he asks.

“What can I say? The world needs Superman.” Lex does move now, pulls back and Clark follows his movements, gets into his personal space and stands in front of him, too much taller and Lex has to crane his neck to look up at him when they’re this close together. “Clark.”

“I had a son,” he says, and the air feels like it’s been squeezed out of him, and he sits back down and covers his face. Since Bruce told him, he’s been trying not to think about it, has been trying to do everything he can to avoid the confrontation of the fact. He’s done some of his best writing as a reporter in the timeframe between Bruce telling him and him making the decision to come to Lex.

For his part, Lex does a remarkably well job of keeping his face steady, even if his heart isn’t. “It’s not really like that,” he says. “I mean—”

“On Krypton it would be.” It occurs to Clark that Lex has no idea how Kryptonians were being born, how they grew up—how really, Kon’s birth (right down to the way Clark and Lex’s DNA was spliced together) was far more traditional for his people than Clark’s was in the first place.

Lex sits down beside him and stares at the floor. It was easier, not thinking about it like they were actual parents. Now? “Yeah,” he says. “We had a son.” He’ll cry about it later, probably, when he’s alone and has had more than enough to drink. He doesn’t know if Clark has cried, or will cry, and he doesn’t want to picture him doing it—whether it’s in his Fortress of Solitude or in his shitty apartment here in Metropolis.

They’re quiet for a while before Clark, with his hand now on Lex’s knee, smoothing his hand over the expensive material of the man’s pants, opens his mouth again. “Why did you do it, Lex?” he asks, and he could be referring to a number of different incidences, but Lex knows that he’s talking about the cloning.

He swallows and there’s not enough air in the world that can make him catch his breath. “I missed you,” he says.

It’s like a dam bursting and Clark is on him, unable and unwilling to stop. He presses Lex against the couch knowing full well that he could break it, that he probably will break it, and now he doesn’t care. He wants to break everything in this penthouse, including Lex and especially including himself. If he’s sobbing while kissing Lex’s face, Lex has the grace not to mention it and to instead drag his fingernails down Clark’s back like they can do any lasting damage, any damage at all. It’s the first time they fuck in years and Clark’s heart feels like it’s shredding and he hopes that Lex’s is, too. They don’t use nice words with each other. If anything, there’s a piece of Clark that blames Lex for this, like there’s always a piece of him that assumes that if there’s something wrong, it might be Lex’s fault. He can’t help it. It isn’t like he doesn’t blame himself, too.

(Neither of them know that, at the moment, the site formerly known as Cadmus Labs is being broken into, that everything regarding the genesis of Superboy is being stolen by a boy who’s mourning the loss of his best friend. In the morning, when Lex is alerted to the crime, he—perhaps uncharacteristically—tells his men not to pursue it. When he’s told about it, he knows what’s happening. Wasn’t he the same at one point?)

Lex shudders under Clark, pulls him down when he starts to move away, and Clark bites a kiss against his neck. They move from room to room until finally ending up in the bathroom, where Clark, under the spray of the water, kneels in front of Lex and presses his face against his abdomen before crying, again, and Lex can’t watch him, but he’s going to start crying, too, fingers tangled in Clark’s hair and head resting against the tile of the shower.

When they finally leave the water, Clark looks away from Lex and at the floor. “I should leave,” he says. He doesn’t want to. He’s filled with a lot of guilt, mostly about things he didn’t know he should have been doing, but feels like he should have known anyways.

“Then leave,” Lex answers, and when Clark looks at him, he’s not looking back. Instead of going back to the living room to retrieve his clothing, Clark wraps his arms around Lex and swallows hard. “What are you doing, Clark?” Lex asks, sounding tired more than annoyed.

“I’m looking for an excuse not to go,” he answers. He thinks about space, thinks about the empty apartment waiting for him, thinks about how he wishes he treated Kon more like a son. “I’m sorry.”

Lex doesn’t ask, ‘for what?’ and Clark is eternally grateful for that. Instead, he leans into him, presses against the long line of Clark’s body, and closes his eyes. “Thanks for stopping by,” he says, and Clark tries to feel better about having done so.

 

 


End file.
